


Scully, Mulder, and the Space Whale

by little_spider



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The X-Files
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Gen, Post-Avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 16:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6813925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_spider/pseuds/little_spider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's three days after the Battle of New York, and Nick Fury's life can't get any worse. Then he sees two goddamn feds investigating alien carcasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scully, Mulder, and the Space Whale

**Author's Note:**

> Caveat: I haven't even finished watching the X-Files yet, but I've developed an obsession. So everybody's favorite special agents are probably ooc here. For some reason I started watching mid-season 3 and am now up to the last several eps of season 5. I'm also simultaneously watching season 1 to work back up to mid-season 3. I don't know what I'm doing, so this is probably a complete piece of crap.

Fury suppressed a sigh and cracked his stiff neck. He'd been awake for going on 72 hours and it looked like he had another situation on hand: not clean-up, search-and-rescue, or managing a quarantine of civilians who'd come into contact with the Chitauri. Not even press management, which to Fury was the second-most repulsive duty of his new never-ending, 24-hour-a-day life that was post-Battle of New York.

This was the single most hated situation he could imagine: staking out SHIELD's territory from that of other law enforcement divisions. Rogers was managing the NYPD, thankfully (and Fury would never admit it, but he thanked his lucky stars that he had a man on his team who could pull that shit off by means of the practicality of a blue-collar kid from Brooklyn and the sheer force of personality of Jesus or something). So they couldn't be the cops. And they sure as shit weren't any of his own agents. So that left two options, FBI or CIA, and Fury wasn't happy with either of them.

The two idiots were excitedly prancing around the carcass of one of those massive animals that had come through the portal. Or, the one idiot was excitedly prancing. The other was actually examining the interior of a gigantic hole in the carcass (courtesy of the Hulk's fist). She snapped on a pair of latex gloves and started pulling evidence bags out of her pocket.

Oh, _fuck_ no.

"Mulder, stop your frolicking and come help me." Her voice was steady, assured, and carried fairly well. "You're like a kid in a candy store."

The man had started responding, though Fury couldn't quite hear it over a sudden rageous roaring in his ears. He clenched his fists and prepared to stalk over. He'd snatch these goddamn fools off the carcass and throw them against a wall.

"Those're mine." Fury refused to be startled and turned to the man that had appeared at his side. He was bald, broad, and be-spectacled. Well, Fury was more bald. The man stuck a hand out to shake.

"Walter Skinner, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of -- "

"Nick Fury, director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." Fury stared at Skinner's hand and refused to shake it.

"Let's just get over the fact that your title's bigger and longer than mine and cut to the chase, then."

Fury closed his eye. He could not believe he'd fallen for that. He blamed his lack of sleep.

"Right," he barked. "Let's cut to the chase. My people are tasked with not just the internationally sanctioned, but right now, the inter- _galactically_ sanctioned duty of not only managing the aftermath of this shit-show but of collecting and analyzing intelligence on a hostile alien race that's just attacked a major metropolitan area, led by a rogue asshole who comes from _another_ alien race that we know very little about but whose one other representative is a friendly. Meanwhile, I've got to manage the simultaneous and massive task of taking the intelligence my science division gathers and put a team together who can brain-storm if there's _any_ way in hell to defend Earth against another attack like this. So get your goddamn feds off that carcass, leave _my_ people to the work of investigating the extra-terrestrial monster, and send your people off to do whatever the hell it is they should be doing right now." Fury finished, and clasped his hands behind his back, flaring his nostrils in the most intimidating way possible.

"You don't understand. They're doing exactly what they should be doing right now." The other man gestured at the carcass. Both of his agents were now peering at its dripping innards. From what Fury could see, the man looked a little woozy. The woman appeared calm.

"So the FBI suddenly has jurisdiction over my people's investigation into the biology of alien life forms, then?" 

The man stood up and started examining the massive bone-like structures on the exterior of the carcass. "I can't tell if it's an exoskeleton or some kind of armor."

"We'll get a sample and take it to the lab, then," the woman said. She briskly handed him an evidence bag and what looked like some kind of scraping tool.

Fury frowned. She reminded him of both Simmons and Romanoff, for some reason. Against his better judgment, he wondered if he could recruit her to SHIELD.

Skinner seemed to read his mind. "If you're looking to go poaching, you should know that they come as a pair. She's a medical doctor, with heavy experience in microbiology. He's our single best behavioral profiler with a thing for aliens. They've been partners for five years."

Fury considered. "She could make a good addition to the bio division of my lab team. I can assign him to intelligence work in Romanoff's division."

"Look," said Skinner. "When he's gone, she reviews old case files and compulsively writes up new reports on them. When she's gone, he throws pencils into the ceiling tiles and bounces his basketball off the wall. Like I said, they come as a pair."

"I've got a couple of teams like that. They could keep working together. Not a concern."

"So we should take off this armor or exoskeleton, Scully?" The man had turned to her again. "I'm concerned. Honestly, if you were a dead space whale, you wouldn't want to be stripped naked in front of a crowd."

Fury rolled his eye in Skinner's direction. The other man shrugged his shoulders. "Don't be fooled. He does serious work."

At that moment, Barton's voice echoed across the street . "Dude, Nat, it's still twitching!" The twang of a bowstring sounded. "Headshot, bitch!"

"Well," said Fury. "We all have some like that. How are they in the field?"

"Clint! Here's another twitcher. I've got this one." Fury and Skinner turned in time to see Agent Romanoff casually stomp on a Chitauri's head, crushing its face in.

"Ah, not quite up to where yours are, but good. Very good."

Fury scoffed. It's not as if he would have these two rookies working with the Avengers or anything. "How are they at following orders?"

"They pick and choose." Fury narrowed his eye at the two. They were both examining the exoskeleton, or armor (or whatever it was) now.

"Believe it or not, Walter, that's not as much of a concern to me as you might think."

"Glad to hear it, _Nick_." Skinner sounded more amused than anything else.

Barton had wandered over to the two feds now. Fury watched as the man flashed his badge and dropped his hand briefly to touch the small of the woman's back while she shook a latex-covered, beslimed hand in Barton's.

"Ew," Barton said, and shook off the slime. 

"Your man was just doing headshots on twitching extraterrestrials and now he's squeamish about gore?" Skinner grunted what sounded like a chuckle.

Fury gritted his teeth. "Barton may seem like a clown, but he's all business." He paused. "You'd be willing to let them come over to SHIELD?"

"Depends," said Skinner. "See what they want to do. I'll warn you: they've got trust issues with higher-ups."

Fury clenched his fists, thinking of the council's brutal decision, of Stark's near-sacrifice. "So do I."

The woman -- Scully -- had turned and was approaching them. "Sir," she said, her face a mask of cool professionalism. Fury stepped in her path to address her, but his mouth quickly dropped open in shock as she bulled right past him to speak to Skinner. "It seems we might have a problem with jurisdiction." She gestured back toward Barton, who now seemed to be in some kind of weird jaw-clenching, staring contest with the other fed. Fury had to admire the guy's nerve, at least; Barton was visibly shorter, but could easily knock him on his ass.

"It seems we do. Agent Scully, meet Nick Fury, director of SHIELD. He's in the process of trying to poach you two from my team. His people are currently tasked with research on the obviously intelligent group of extraterrestrial life forms that -- "

"That just broke Manhattan," Fury interrupted. "Dana Scully. I hear you and your partner Mulder are specialists in these matters." 

Agent Scully looked up at him, pursing her lips. She was a full head shorter than Fury, yet he felt like he was under a microscope. She blinked twice. "Mulder!" she called.

At her voice the man turned his attention abruptly in her direction, and Fury was reminded of a compass needle, always drawn to the north. _Like that, was it?_ he thought, and shrugged inwardly. Five years as partners. If he read them correctly (and Fury always read people correctly), their entire lives were bound up in their work, and therefore in each other. At least on his end. She was a tougher read.

Now it was the two of them, looking at him. Agent Mulder shook Fury's hand at Skinner's behest.

"Ooh," he said, all dry insouciance. "SHIELD. What did I tell you, Scully? These guys operate outside normal restrictions. They've been so eager to cover up all evidence of extraterrestrial life, and now it just blew up in their faces.

"And you're the class clown that's been working in the FBI's basement office, a smart profiler and former VCS hero whose obsession with aliens quickly made him a laughingstock. You'd been looking into unsolved cases and no one took you seriously until your partner here joined you and combined her rational, scientific mind with your unsubstantiated theories. And _you_ ," Fury said, turning to Scully, "trained in forensic medicine and microbiology, were recruited to the FBI, taught at Quantico, and then moved down to said basement office to combine said scientific mind with said class clown. Since you two have been working on these so-called 'x-files' you've neither been able to prove nor disprove the existence of aliens, ghosts, demons, or any other paranormal spooky shit to any of your superiors. What am I missing?"

Scully drew back slightly in surprise. Mulder shut his smart mouth and looked at her. Behind them, Skinner was tiredly rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Now," Fury continued. "As of four days ago, the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence has been undoubtedly proven, and made public to the entire world, as you are both well aware. My question is: would you like the opportunity to work on these things in an official capacity, out of a real office and a real lab rather than in a basement with a shitty coffee maker?"

Scully appeared to be slightly more skilled than Mulder at hiding her excitement at the prospect, but not by much. 

"How did you know about the coffee maker?" Mulder asked.

"I have my eye _everywhere_ , Fox Mulder." He sort of opened and closed his mouth in confusion, then turned to Skinner.

"How long have you known about this? Who is SHIELD's mole in the Bureau?"

"I only learned of the existence of SHIELD five days ago, during the incident in Stuttgart. Fury is offering you a chance to do some important work here. But you'd be leaving the FBI."

"So if you want to work on aliens, both the known and the unknown," Fury clarified, "you'll be working for me."

The Spooky twins, as Fury would later think of them, shook hands with their former director and walked with Fury. Mulder's face was split into a wide grin. Scully's close-lipped smile wasn't fooling anyone; she was practically bouncing on her feet as she walked, but trying very, very hard not to show it.

"We've got two teams right now, seeing as we've got two separate alien races. Project Chitauri and Project Asgard. As for the latter, we've got interviews with and hair and DNA samples from two of these people. Human-looking. Super-powered. You probably saw our muscled friend, flying around with a hammer and a red cape; he's one of them. As for the former project, well . . . " Fury gestured at the dead bodies of the Chitauri and their unfortunate monstrous steeds. "Think about it while you get oriented. You're going to need to walk four blocks north and look for a guy wearing a red and gold metal suit who is probably eating doughnuts while he listens to bad 90s metal. He'll help you find your way to the helicarrier, where you'll report to Agent Melinda May. She'll get you situated."

*****

"Space whales."

"We know less about these Asgardians, Mulder. Wouldn't you rather work on those?"

"You're only into them because of that guy's muscles. Muscles are overrated. Come on. Space whales, Scully." He bumped her shoulder affectionately.

"I'm sure we'll have to find a more scientific name for these creatures. It's a newly discovered life form. Certainly anaerobic, which is just bizarre for something that size. And seeing as it came directly through the portal from space, then it must -- "

"Have the capacity to adapt to drastic and sudden changes in pressure, atmosphere, temperature. Perhaps that's not an exoskeleton, or armor at all. It's -- "

"Some kind of protective covering? That would make a kind of sense."

He took hold of her arms and faced her, smiling like a schoolboy. "It's a space whale in a space suit, Scully. And it's _real_."

"It _is_ real." Scully wasn't given much to grinning, and she had never had a penchant for making those little squealing noises of excitement that some people made. And if she did do both at that moment when she hugged him, she would never admit it.

Space whales it was.


End file.
